Caleb
“Mrs. Anderson, I apologize for all the violence, but it’s a necessary evil. Now, once again, would you mind repeating to me what we discussed earlier, so I can be totally sure of letting you go once you’ve done your part,” Liam said.
Even lying halfway across the room, I saw how tight Liam had tied her hands. Her voice was trembling so badly I thought she’d break if she pushed herself past her limit.
“Please don’t do this. I just want to see my daughter, please let me see her.“
“Maria, crying won’t do if either of you want to live past today.”
“You’re a damn liar, Liam! Mrs. Anderson, don’t listen him. He’s been after your daughter and he’ll kill her if he has to,” I said.
“Maria, please excuse me.”
There wasn’t any use in trying to get away from Liam ‘cause he flew over and kicked me onto my back so fast I didn’t even have time to brace for it.
“The game’s changed, Cal, but because you’re the flesh of my flesh I’ll let you in on the grand scheme of things. I’ve lost interest in killing little girls, so in exchange for Maria and your lady love’s lives, I’m taking Anderson’s, and then yours, and then mine. Doesn’t that put your heart to rest? Knowing your Hailey is out my line of fire. But don’t get too comfortable ‘cause I’m gonna ruin her either way. I’m gonna turn her into you and Maria into me. Broken people who have everything worth living for taken away from them.”
He brought his heel down onto my leg so hard I choked out a scream. But I fought against every part of my body that wanted to quit living, ‘cause God knows Liam wasn’t worth dying for.
“Sit and watch, little brother. It’s gonna be quite the show. Where were we, Maria?”
Liam danced back across the room like the devil was at his heels and left me to strattle the line between staying sharp and blacking out. My gut went cold but my hands stayed warm trying to hold my wound shut. Panic rattled the bars in my bones, but I held back and tore off the sleeve of my shirt to tie off my leg.
“Maria, repeat what I’ve asked of you,” he said.
“I’ll take the tape to the police and the press, once my husband admits to—”
“Admits to what? This is key, Maria. Read what I’ve written for you and don’t screw it up.”
“—The attempted murder, fraudulent charges against, and bribery of the Evans brothers, the manipulation of the police, and the attempted murder of myself and my daughter.”
Liam wanted to tell our story to whole the world, to broadcast our lives to total strangers like it would change things. But none of what we’d been through belonged in newspaper headlines or CNN specials.
Nobody needed to know our story. Nobody needed to see the kind of suffering we’d caused. Our sins would follow us down into the dirt and feed the maggots instead of the press.
“Mrs. Anderson, you’ve skipped the most important crime on your husband’s long list; the murder of Jack Evans, who burned alive for the senator’s entertainment.”
I’d been holding on to this dream ever since the tree house, a kind of empty hope you keep in your back pocket just to feel like you’ve got something to shoot for. My Dad was that dream even though he’d been a nightmare for most of my life. But I’d wanted to change that.
I’d spent so many nights wishing he’d be different towards me, waiting to feel like he loved me. But outta nowhere, when I thought I was ready to let him go and give up on a lifetime of dead-end dreaming, he talked to me like I was worth something. Like I was his son. Like he had something to be proud of. Like I had something to go back to.
Even if I spent twenty-years in jail, I’d have him to go back to. We’d have a chance to start over. But in a handful of words Liam stole that future from me, and my back pocket dream went up in smoke along with my father.
The sickly smell of Dad’s whiskey-washed breath snuck past my nostrils like a ghost of a memory, and I spewed spit and tears all over Mrs. Anderson’s perfectly polished floors. My body didn’t know how to deal with losing another distant part of it aside from dry heaving out the kind of sadness it couldn’t stomach.
Somebody’s shoes scuffled through the fancy doors at my back while I broke under the weight of losing of my Dad. When the world came back into focus, I looked up into the face of the man who’d talked me into losing everything through a fifty-cent payphone.
He didn’t say a word, just stared down at me from the end of his nose like I was no better than dog shit on the bottom of his shiny shoes.
“Mr. Evans, I believe I gave you an hour to dispose of my family, so why is my wife still sitting at the dining table, and where’s my daughter?”
“I thought it’d be best if your wife lived to hear those words come out of your mouth, Mr. Anderson. Her and the whole world,” Liam said.
He cut through the zip ties around Maria’s hands and gas lit the tension in the room. Anderson’s face paled while he fished for something in his pocket with his free hand.
“I’m not the man to threaten right now, son. I’ve got SWAT in my back pocket, and they’ll clean up this situation so it works in my favor. What do you have working in yours?”
"The state. You think I wasn’t watching from the woods when your SWAT dogs killed those officers? I’m sure they’re less than happy with you about that little error of judgment. You’re quite the magician, Mitch. But you can’t keep Virginia’s finest on a leash forever.”
“They’ll stay on my leash as long as I pay them to.”
“Mitch, what is he talking about?” Maria asked.
Her eyes filled up with the kind of hurt that only comes with ignorance. She didn’t know she’d married a monster. Most women never do.
“Business, honey. Business. But don’t you worry about all that. As a matter of fact—”
Anderson pulled out a pistol he’d been hiding under his jacket and pointed it across the dining table. “—don’t you worry about a thing."
Took me half a second to send the heels of my sneakers crashing into Anderson’s knees. His bullet meant for Maria exploded into the chandelier and rained bits and pieces of glass down on all of us.
“Call the cops and go! I’ll look after Hailey, just get outta here, ma’am!”
I hardly had a voice left to shout with, but I would’ve screamed myself hoarse as long as she got as far away from here as possible. Liam let her go, like he promised. At least he kept them to her.
Before she disappeared down the hallway, Maria stopped and looked right at me. Her eyes softened a little, like the hatred I’d expected she’d have in them had given way to something close to compassion. Whatever it was, I hoped she’d see the sliver of the man I wanted to be, not the news story I’d become.
“Well, look who’s playing hero. I’ll tell you a secret, son. Real life heroes die young. The bad guys live to tell the world about it,” Anderson said.
Anderson darted towards me, pinned my body to the floor, and shoved his knee into my chest ‘til he crushed the air out of my lungs. For every second I kicked and squirmed under his weight, a warm rush of blood came spilling out of my jeans.
He tilted his gun towards me but I sent my knuckles into the soft skin lining the sides of his face before he could shoot. He flinched like he’d never taken a hit in his life. Two and half punches in, his jaw cracked under my fist, but he stuck his pistol under my chin before I could finish what I’d started.
“Do it. I’m ready to die, Anderson. I’ve been dying since the day I was born. I’m just glad I got to live long enough to see exactly what you are.”
He cocked the pistol and pushed the mouth against my throat ‘til I choked on the steel.
“And what’s that, son?”
“Afraid.”
I blinked, and he was gone—just flew off me like he hadn’t been there at all. Liam knocked Anderson off onto his back and took revenge for the both of us a punch at a time. He wasn’t gonna stop ‘til he settled the score, ‘til he beat the last breath out of the man who’d ruined us.
But none of this felt like justice. It wouldn’t change things. I couldn’t fix all the places where we were broken. It wouldn’t save Ma. It wouldn’t save Liam. It wouldn’t save me.
My family’s sadness had to end with us. It wasn’t anybody else’s to live with, just ours to put to rest. I crawled towards Liam, my heart set on ending his chaos, and caught his fist in my hands.
He thrashed against me, but I held him back with everything I had. He needed to stop, and I had to stop him before he stole somebody else’s father from them.
He whipped around towards me, half-blinded by tears, like he’d lost himself to the grief he’d been hiding beneath his anger for so long. Somewhere in the middle of all that rage, he shattered. Quietly. Painfully. Just broke into pieces along with his purpose.
"This doesn't have to be us, Liam. We don't have to finish things like this," I said.
He tightened up on the trigger and I tightened up on my grip around his wrist, hoping to cut off that wild fire desire to kill burning beneath his skin. I felt it seeping through his sweat—seeping into me.
So I fought. I fought against the temptation of making another deadly mistake. I fought for our dignity with all the broken strength I had left. We didn't have to be the monsters today. We could choose to be merciful. We could choose to be men.
"This is who we are, Caleb. Our family finishes what we start. We do what we need to. We kill who we need to. Redemption runs in our blood."
"It doesn't have to, anymore. We can walk away. All of this done when you want you it to be."
"You know what I want, Caleb?"
He wrenched his hand away from of me and shoved the barrel of his pistol an inch deep into the broken skin where he'd stabbed me. I bit into my tongue while the white-hot pain from the pressure seared my muscles.
"—No more distractions."
I sunk towards the floor, slowly collapsing under my weight while Liam crushed Anderson beneath his. Losing focus meant losing everything, so I pushed my body past its limits to try and stop him a second time.
The firecracker click of Liam cocking Anderson's pistol rang through my ears like it was the only sound in the room. I stopped breathing, stopped thinking, and lunged for him head on. We crashed into each other, bones rattling 'til the hollow thud of our bodies thundered against the floor.
Liam flipped me over and slammed me against the wood hard enough to knock the wind out of my lungs. I choked on the shock, gasping for dead air while he pointed a loaded gun at my chest. He was close enough to end things, to take a shot and wipe me clean outta his conscious.
I searched the scars in his face and the depths of his eyes for the man I used to call my brother, for the man who would've died for me instead of shooting to kill. He wasn't there. Not anymore.
"I promised I'd shoot you back at the slaughterhouse. I swore I'd do it, I swore that I'd deliver you to Ma myself, but I can't. I can't move my hands, Caleb. See what you've done? Every time you look at me the way she would've, I can't bring myself to finish things. You’ve ruined me.”
I reached out for him, hoping he'd hold on to me like he used to when we were kids. We didn't even need words back then. All I ever had to do was hold out my hand to him and he'd pick me up, smile, and tell me things would be okay.
When things fell apart with our parents he said we'd be okay. When I barely survived Dad, he said we'd be okay. So on a day like this, when nothing was okay, I needed him to lie to me.
"Let me finish what I started, Cal. Please, I promised. I promised her I would."
The world blurred out of focus through tears I didn't have in me to hide. He was too broken to fight for his sanity anymore. He was too broken to fight for me.
Liam held his aim steady while his body shook from his ragged his breathing. I sat up as best I could and leaned towards him 'til I felt the metal of his gun push against my chest. The sting of the cold steel nearly stopped my heart, but I stayed put, hoping he'd see the boy in me who still needed his brother.
He pulled me in close enough for a clear shot and covered my eyes with his tired hands. It almost felt like one of his old hugs. It almost made dying like this feel a little less lonely.
"Liam. Take care of Hailey. Get her to the police for me. Promise me that."
"Whatever you say little brother. Be a good boy and keep quiet now. It'll be over quicker than you—"
Liam's hand fell away from my eyes almost as fast as he fell away from me. Anderson popped up from behind, snatched Liam’s knife from his belt, and pushed the blade into his back. It was that quick, that easy for things to fall apart.
I dug my fingers into Liam’s shoulders and pulled him away from Anderson, clawing at the cloth of his t-shirt just to pry him out of the line of fire. Liam reached out and grabbed on to me, his grip weaker than I'd ever felt it.
"Caleb, please. Stop him, please stop him.”
Anderson edged in closer—close enough for me to feel the heat of his desperation, close enough for me to frantically grab at his wrists to slow him down. I didn’t have the strength left to stop him. He didn’t have the humanity to stop himself.
"Who's afraid now, boy?"
I held my grip ‘til my knuckles paled and my palms bled, but the friction didn't make a difference. I pushed back against Anderson, pitting my bruised body against his so I could save my brother. But instead of coming out a hero, I let a monster sink a blade into his skin.
"Please don't do this. He's all I got left, Mitch. He's all I got.”
My voice broke somewhere between in my heart and my throat. Anderson locked his eyes on mine, smiled, and shoved the rest of the knife into the space near Liam's spine.
"It's already, done, son. It's already done."
A shot rang out in the silence. Liam’s whole body rattled in my hands. He’d shot himself clean through the chest and left me to watch the bullet burst through him and bury itself into Anderson’s shoulder.
The stink of burnt flesh and fresh blood poisoned the air while Liam crumpled against me and let the pistol fall from his hands.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Settling the score, little brother.”
Liam's breathing slowed and stilled, 'til the sound of him trying to survive got too shallow to hear. His body went loose in my hands like he didn't own it anymore, and he collapsed into me like Anderson had stolen his soul. He'd taken the both of ours and left them to bleed on his dining room floor.
Anderson scrambled for the gun and pointed it at me the second he steadied his hand.
“Don’t be too upset, son. You’ll be joining him sooner than you—”
“Dad?”
Hailey’s voice cut across the quiet and snatched Anderson’s attention away from me.
“Excuse me, Evans. My daughter needs me. Don’t go anywhere now. I’ll be back for you in a minute.”
He turned and fled the room, running straight towards the hiding place she should’ve kept secret. I didn’t chase him. I couldn’t move, ‘cause my heart chose my family for the first and last time.
Liam’s eyes were searching the ceiling for something I couldn’t see. I did my best to hold him like he'd be okay and to cover the hole in his chest whistling his life away. But my best couldn't stop the bleeding. My best couldn't out do bullets.
"Looks like Cillian's not the only sharpshooter in the family, huh, Caleb?"
He gasped in a mouthful of air and grinned ‘til his teeth turned pink. I pressed my hands over his wound like if I pushed hard enough I could fix things. But the blood slipped through my fingers faster than my spirit.
"Yeah, you got him. You got him real good, Liam."
"Is he dying?" He asked.
The truth got stuck in my throat, along with every other white lie I wish I could’ve told him. My eyes burned so badly I couldn't see straight, so I sat in silence, searching for the right words where there weren't any.
"I don't know," I said.
"Am I?"
He reached out, hands shaking like a child's, and stared up at me eyes wide and waiting on the kind of answer I couldn't give him.
"You're gonna be okay. Everything's okay," I said.
His chest heaved beneath my fingers.
"But I can't feel anything, Cal. I can't feel your hands."
"Just rest for a little bit, Liam. You just gotta rest."
I pulled him to me tight as I could like I could anchor him to this world with the little strength I had left.
"Ma'll forgive me won't she? For letting her down."
"Liam, don't make me answer that."
"Caleb. Please."
"Of course she will."
"Good.‘Cause I’m scared, Cal. I’m scared.”
“Tell me how to fix this, Liam. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything.”
“I’m all outta answers, Cal. But if there’s a man in this family who can fix things, it’s you. You’re in charge now, little brother.”
An old, familiar light in his eyes flickered to life in the space between seconds. He smiled at me the way he used to, the way he did when we loved each other without all the pain. My brother came back. My brother came home.
“I can’t do this by myself, Liam. I don’t know how to do this alone. Promise me you’ll be okay. Please.”
"That's the thing about promises, Caleb. Sometimes you just can't—"
And he was gone.
And I was too.
Except my heart kept beating, and his didn't.